Update from a reader:
Following the recent oral argument in Castellanos, the Court entered an identical order in each of the three companion cases that had been stayed: Richardson v. Aramark, Louis Pfeffer, et al. v. Labor Ready and Diaz v. Palmetto General Hospital. The Order lifts the stays, accepts jurisdiction and dispenses with oral argument. They ordered the Petitioner’s brief on the merits to be served on or before December 1, 2014; respondent’s brief on the merits is to be served twenty thereafter; and petitioner’s reply brief served twenty days after service of respondent’s brief on the merits. The Clerk of the First DCA is to file the record on appeal before January 6, 2015. The record will include the briefs filed in the district court separately indexed. There will be no oral argument, and extensions of time on the briefs are unlikely to be granted. Richardson may make the most compelling argument regarding attorney fees; namely that the Legislature doesn’t have to provide for prevailing party fees, but if it chooses to do so, the resulting fee cannot be so low that it is confiscatory of the lawyer’s time and talents, particularly where the law also criminalizes the collection of a fee from the lawyer’s own client, and particularly where the state constitution has a provision (Article 1 – Declaration of Rights, Section 2) guaranteeing the right to be rewarded for industry:
What we do know is that there will be no decision this year, and the Court will likely just write an opinion in one of the cases, with the others being affirmed or reversed with a simple citation to primary case.
Update from a reader:
Following the recent oral argument in Castellanos, the Court entered an identical order in each of the three companion cases that had been stayed: Richardson v. Aramark, Louis Pfeffer, et al. v. Labor Ready and Diaz v. Palmetto General Hospital. The Order lifts the stays, accepts jurisdiction and dispenses with oral argument. They ordered the Petitioner’s brief on the merits to be served on or before December 1, 2014; respondent’s brief on the merits is to be served twenty thereafter; and petitioner’s reply brief served twenty days after service of respondent’s brief on the merits. The Clerk of the First DCA is to file the record on appeal before January 6, 2015. The record will include the briefs filed in the district court separately indexed. There will be no oral argument, and extensions of time on the briefs are unlikely to be granted. Richardson may make the most compelling argument regarding attorney fees; namely that the Legislature doesn’t have to provide for prevailing party fees, but if it chooses to do so, the resulting fee cannot be so low that it is confiscatory of the lawyer’s time and talents, particularly where the law also criminalizes the collection of a fee from the lawyer’s own client, and particularly where the state constitution has a provision (Article 1 – Declaration of Rights, Section 2) guaranteeing the right to be rewarded for industry:
What we do know is that there will be no decision this year, and the Court will likely just write an opinion in one of the cases, with the others being affirmed or reversed with a simple citation to primary case.
HRMCWW